My Lord! 😯

Isn't it great when geek speak leaves one breathless; it's like a O4500 in an upscaled Alpha. What kind of power source and how much would be necessary to activate all the bells and whistles? I'm no electronics wizard but could probably help with funding or grant searching.

Warren, I'll forward your posting on the a couple of guys I work with that might be interested it joining your project. They have talked about doing the same sort of thing for a while now but not with chewing gum 😉 Still they have a lot of experience designing and laying out high speed data boards. I'll let you know.

Doug

Warren, I got a favorable response. I sent you an e-mail with some details.

Doug

I have no idea what all that meant, but it sounds very cool! Good luck with the development Warren.

Sorry, Warren. 4-5 years ago, I could have done everything myself. While I still have the software to design and provide the correct Gerber files, that was too long ago now. I still plan to pick the lifelong hobby of electronics up again and use that software, but too much going on now. I think Doug put you in touch with the right people. It's a wonderful project, absolute best of luck, and keep us informed!

I'm in touch with a buddy of Doug's and moving forward. Other folks, particularly math-involved programmers or sensor involved hardware guys are welcome to step up to the plate and will be much appreciated.

Warren

I used to program firmware in C, and that's what you'll need. I know there has to be a few geeks in the club who do it. The guys that Doug suggested surely know how to use digital sensors, and there has to be a C programmer in there somewhere. The thing is bring your software guy in soon enough so he can plan things out as this goes along. He'll need to know what addresses are being used and for what, specific math algorithms he'll be using, he'll write small test scripts so you can check things out, etc. Most of what he'll need will come with the hardware fact sheets. This really sounds like fun. I wish I had the time.

So I have no experience with the gumstix, the fun part is the two different data streams. GPS data and live telemetry at the same time over the same serial downlink unless you plan to do them separate the downlinks with 2 transmitter/receivers.

What I've been sorta planning on doing is using a gumstix with 3 serial ports. One port goes to my GPS chip, another to the RF wireless chip and the third to either an as-yet undesigned data acquisition and sensor package or to one of Adrian's Parrot altimeters which can be polled in flight. My software on the gumstix would then combine the data into a single data structure something like:

Timestamp:GPS string:altimeter string:accelerometer string EOL
Timestamp:GPS string:altimeter string:accelerometer string EOL
Timestamp:GPS string:altimeter string:accelerometer string EOL

etc. etc. etc.

Pretty simple to do, might not even have to write C to do it - just a BASH script or C Shell script to tie together already available apps like gpsd and combine their output and push it out a tty port.

Unfortunately, right now my gumstix is sitting in a box on my bench while I'm doing a bunch of composite layup and vacuum bagging for my L3.

Warren

Interesting, I would like to see how it turns out. Greg and Brad have been working on the GPS add-on for the RMCS, should be ready to beta fly at the April Ex launch if we have it at the North site.

When do you plan to have yours ready Warren?

Well the original plan was to fly it in my L3 project at Mayhem, but it's probably going to be on the backburner a few more months past that. I don't want it to get in the way of my L3 flight. It might end up waiting until next Winter though I sincerely hope not. I'd like to get it flying this year.

Warren